MEPS: Global Stainless Steel output to top 40mn tons this year

UNITED STATES July 31 2014 5:32 PM

 

LONDON (Scrap Register): Global crude stainless steel production is predicted to reach a new record annual total of 40.2 million tons this year as reported by MEPS. This would exceed the previous high figure, set last year, by 5.7 percent. Output is expected to grow in all of the major stainless steel making countries and regions.

 

Some of the established stainless steel producing areas are performing more strongly than had been anticipated. Output in the EU, in the first six months of this year, is estimated at around 4 million tons. A twelve-month total of 7.55 million tons is forecast, representing a year-on-year increase of 5.7 percent.

 

Output in the United States, in the first half of 2014, has also outstripped our previous forecast. The annual outturn for the year is now predicted at 2.1 million tons, an increase of 3.4 percent over the 2013 figure.

 

The recovery in Japan continues at the expected rate. Production in the period from January to June is reckoned to be 1.65 million tons. A similar figure is anticipated for the second half of the year, to give an annual total of 3.3 million tons – 4 percent greater than in the previous year.

 

South Korean production is predicted expected to turn out at 2.15 million tons for the whole of 2014. This equates to a 1.9 percent increases over last year. Our forecast for stainless steel output in Taiwan, this year, has been uprated to 1.125 million tons – a year-on-year advance of 4.1 percent.

 

Expansion in the emerging economies will continue at a higher rate than in the traditional areas. Chinese production has exceeded expectations during the first half of 2014 and is anticipated to expand by 6.4 percent year-on-year, to achieve an annual figure of 20.2 million tons – more than half of the global total.

 

Crude stainless steelmaking in the rest of the world is predicted at 3.775 million tons, this year, giving a growth rate of 7.8 percent over the 2013 total.